What’s the News:Metamaterials could improve wireless power transfer, letting us one day charge our devices without the hassle of cords and wires, says a study published last week in Physical Review B. While wireless power transfer already works to for tiny amounts of energy, metamaterials could theoretically be used to safely and efficiently boost the technique to handle more power, such as microwaves and lasers.

How the Heck:

Using current techniques, the amount of energy needed to charge personal electronics could, if transmitted wirelessly, burn up whatever’s in its way—up to and including the device it’s supposed to charge. What’s more, energy tends to dissipate through open space, making this sort of power transfer extremely inefficient.

Since the study was purely theoretical, scientists will still have to build and test out these metamaterial lenses to know they really work.

Even if it works, this technique doesn’t mean you could have a universal charger. Every phone or tablet or what have you would still need its own, the researchers say, since the lens would be specifically designed to work with that particular device.